500.A15a3/409: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Garrett) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 19—4:25 p.m.]
84. I was today informed by Minister for Foreign Affairs that he is most optimistic concerning the possibility of coming to an understanding on parity with France. He says this optimism is based on the report of a discussion between the Italian Ambassador in Paris and Briand; as has happened before, however, he may perhaps be forced to reduce this optimism when Briand has had further talks with Berthelot and other officials. Grandi expresses enthusiastic support of President Hoover’s proposal that food ships in time of war should be free from any interference.91 There is no thought in his mind—as he most emphatically says—of placing any obstacles in the way of the announced purposes of the Naval Conference, but he said that he is considering bringing up the food ship question himself in his opening speech at the Conference, despite the President’s statement that this question will not be injected into the discussions. My answer to him, to which he readily assented, was that I assumed there would be an agenda agreed on by the five powers before the conference.
- See vol. iii, p. 24. The President’s views were publicly stated in his Armistice Day address printed in Congressional Record, vol. 72, pt. 1, p. 505.↩